


Music and Thin Walls

by dorothy_notgale



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Flash Fic, Gen, Melancholy, POV First Person, Pranks, embedded music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:51:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4440065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothy_notgale/pseuds/dorothy_notgale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memory is a funny thing. Little bits come back, and once they're there, you're left with more questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Music and Thin Walls

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely inspired by [this conversation](http://obscuruslupa.tumblr.com/post/124464001612/did-someone-say-quantum-leap-throws-music) between schrodingers-rufus and obscuruslupa.

My memory isn't what it once was—but then, presumably nothing is what it once was, or will be, since Quantum Leaping actually works. Still, Swiss-cheesed brain or not, there are little things you do remember, and sometimes it just takes a nudge. A song, for example.

It's 1974, and I'm trying to get to sleep on a flat, stained pillow in a No-Tell Motel somewhere in New Hampshire when the folks in the next room turn on the radio, and a fragment of my pre-Leap life trickles back through the yellow-papered wall.

Al and I had different taste in music (in other words, I _had_ taste), but we always used to be able to come to some sort of compromise. By that I mean nine times out of ten he'd give in and let me control the stereo after some token protest and a reminder that normally he'd never let anyone change the station, but he was too busy working or driving to mess with buttons.

There was just one song he hated with a passion. Not the artist, just the one song—he'd hum “Mrs. Robinson” or outright sing and dance to “Me and Julio,” but this one he'd turn off outright. Eventually it became a kind of game; I'd put it on the turntable at work, or line it up on a jukebox when we went out to eat. Once I snuck into his car and left it primed in the tape deck. He threw the cassette out the window and then went back to get it for recycling, which just made the whole thing funnier.

And I wonder—did I already know, then, everything I do now, but fail to make the connections? Or did Leaping give me the chance to learn Al more thoroughly than I ever did when we were face to face? My memory’s silent on that.

All I know right now, lying under scratchy polyester sheets and staring at a watermarked ceiling, is that I'm glad Paul Simon's on his last _lie-la-lie_ , because I don't find "The Boxer" very entertaining anymore.


End file.
